


The one you love is sick.

by RockPaperbackScissors



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F, Recovery, Resurrection, falling in love platonically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 04:24:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7669963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RockPaperbackScissors/pseuds/RockPaperbackScissors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miranda discovers that bringing Commander Shepard back from the dead is even more complicated than she originally thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The one you love is sick.

Much to Miranda’s annoyance, the Lazarus project didn’t end when Shepard woke up.

Sure, Shepard could walk and talk and fire a gun, and her heartbeat and blood pressure marched within the acceptable physiological ranges. But all those little rivulets of chemicals and electricity that converge to create happiness or hope or desire? Those, it turned out, were much harder to reconstruct. Shepard would spend hours with unfocused eyes glued to newsfeeds, would stare uncomprehendingly at the food put in front of her, would retreat into a corner of the cargo bay and silently sit alone for hours.

This outcome, Miranda decided, was an unacceptable conclusion to the most ambitious and well-funded biomedical engineering endeavor in human history. Not with everything that depended on Shepard, and certainly not after all the time and energy that Miranda had invested in the project.

As part of her effort to keep Shepard focused, Miranda began to remember how to play a role that had been hers before she became a scientist or officer: she remembered how to be a sister. She checked in on Shepard at the end of every day. She made sure that Shepard was eating. She did what she could to maintain Shepard’s morale, even if she made herself look like a cheerleader in the process.

“Nice shot!” she’d call out in the middle of a firefight. “Impressive!” She kept her voice bright even when blood was streaming down her own face.  

Several weeks into this act, she noticed that Shepard was changing for the better. Shortly thereafter, she noticed a change in herself as well. She wasn’t keeping Shepard alive to prove the success of the Lazarus project, or even for the sake of humanity’s survival.

She was keeping Shepard alive because of Shepard.

When you want to bring someone back from the dead, the work doesn’t end when their heart starts to beat again. 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Mass Effect friendship week on Tumblr :) 
> 
> Title comes from the story of Lazarus.


End file.
